Have you ever felt like your given name just didn’t suit you? I did when I was younger since William was first shortened to Billy and then to Bill. Bill just didn’t fit the bill for me, it lacked a certain charm and I needed to break with tradition. My grandfather, father, uncle and father on my mother’s side were all called Bill. Therefore, I decided to go with Will or William once I moved away from the confines of small town life.

It might seem a superficial thing to do. I mean you’re still the same person after all, but choosing a new moniker feels like starting over to pursue a new identity. It took several years but now even in my family everyone knows that I am no longer Bill but strong-willed and slightly the black sheep, Will. Nevertheless, I only changed the usage of my existing name since I didn’t want to lose my roots even if I branched out in a different direction from them.

Certain names don’t scream out rebel regardless of form used, for example Stuart, Stu or Stewy don’t incite rebellion in my mind. I guess that lack of revolutionary spirit is what inspired, according to The Smoking Gun, Earl Kenneth Kaufman to change his name legally to The Scary Guy.

A judge in Arizona granted his request. With a body 85% covered in tattoos, various piercings and brightly dyed hair, some folks might have already given him the title, The Scary Guy, unofficially. However, it seems he chose it as a tongue-in-cheek misnomer since on his website he describes himself as a well-intentioned but misunderstood educational guru hoping to bring to the world a new era of peace, love and tolerance.

Maybe his old name was scarier in a less sarcastic sense since according to Mel Gibson’s character, Jerry in Conspiracy Theory (1997) “…lone gunmen assassins, they always have three names. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, Mark David Chapman…”

Then again, The Scary Guy is still three words long although he seems to want to target hearts not presidents with his peaceful solutions to the world’s woes even if his method of inspiration is slightly unorthodox.